January/February 2001

Depleted uranium

Western Europe is in an uproar over the mounting death toll from "Balkan syndrome." Fifteen soldiers who served as peacekeepers in Kosova and Bosnia-where more than 40,000 rounds of U.S. munitions containing depleted uranium were fired-have died of leukemia, and thousands more suffer from a variety of disorders similar to the Gulf War syndrome.

The U.S. and Britain shot down their NATO allies' demands for a moratorium on use of the radioactive ammunition. They proclaimed that depleted uranium never hurt anyone-aside from those who were blown to bits or burned alive inside tanks and buildings whose walls were vaporized by uranium-tipped shells.

Experts were trotted out to "prove" that it was "biologically impossible" for depleted uranium to cause leukemia. This claim went up in smoke when a UN study found eight of 11 sites tested in Kosova to be "considerably contaminated," and emitting beta radiation. Unlike the alpha radiation given off by uranium 238-the only radioactive substance the experts assumed was in the munitions-beta particles can penetrate bones, causing leukemia.

The UN study-which was delayed 18 months by NATO non-cooperation and whose full results will not be known until March-also found traces of uranium 236, which is far more hazardous than U-238. Soon the Pentagon was forced to admit that plutonium, which can kill even in minute amounts, and other highly dangerous elements were found in the supposedly depleted uranium. The Pentagon knew this a year ago and never warned its allies, or the public, until now!

So great is the public outrage that after the NATO cover-up several European countries embarked on their own studies of the sweeping health problems of their former peacekeepers, and the European Parliament called for a halt in the use of depleted uranium munitions. Britain even had to reverse its refusal to screen its soldiers for medical problems.

Still, what about the effects on people who live in the bombed areas of Bosnia and other countries? A UN study last May concluded that Kosova groundwater may be so contaminated as to be unfit for drinking. Children and adults have unwittingly collected bits of radioactive shells, and dairy cows graze in contaminated areas.

And what about Iraq, where radioactive debris from the 1991 Gulf War still contaminates the land and water? Doctors there report a massive increase in leukemia, which they attribute to depleted uranium. The U.S.-led embargo denies Iraq the medicine to treat the illness. Also, U-236 has been found in the urine and bone tissue of some Gulf War veterans. And just as the military tried to deny there even is a Gulf War syndrome, there is not one word, much less a study, of what is happening to workers who produce, pack and load these shells.

Capitalism's anti-human nature is revealed even in its technological advances, creating weapons that keep killing a decade after the shooting stops.

-Franklin Dmitryev